Real Housewives of Beverly Hills-The Reunion Pt.1

Well things got ugly behind scenes, and I’m not talking about Kim’s boyfriend Ken. BOOM. Speaking of, Kim isn’t here for the reunion as she (smartly) checked herself into rehab in December for alcohol, and I truly wish her the best. Pull it together, Escape From Witch Mountain! (Kyle says right up front that she won’t discuss Kim’s rehab.)

But what I want to talk about is how everyone is a total jerkface to my spirit animal, Lisa Vanderpump. Let’s get ready to rumble!

The opening act is to get confirmation on whether Camille Grammer and Brandi Glanville bumped uglies like Brandi hinted at. Camille laughs, admits they were handsy (oh were you, now?) but no “spit was swapped.” They just got freaky on the dance floor. (Honey chile, sometimes babies is made up on them dance flurs, you just have to be in the right club.)

Speaking of grab-ass, Lisa is asked if she got butt cheek implants. What on earth? No, she insists it is her own natural padonk-a-donk rocking those tight dresses. She also says Pandora’s wedding didn’t cost one meelion dollars. Not even $500,000. And she won’t say how much, because even her daughter doesn’t know the amount, and Lisa has class.

And in the no-class (or forced class) corner we have Adrienne Maloof, who is determined to be angry with Lisa, no matter what. Ms. Bickerson is still pissed about the Palms not being utilized for Pandora’s bachelorette party, and let it go, Adrienne. She should have been given the chance to be turned down. What? She makes no sense. Lisa keeps telling her that she had nothing to do with it, that Pandora and her bridesmaids planned the party, which makes sense. But whatever, Adrienne wants to be pissed.

So what about the whole Maloof-hoof/Vander-pump war? Because I think we all can remember when the streets ran red with shoemaker blood. We all were affected by this battle royale. Oh, what’s that? You don’t remember it being a war? You just remember Lisa being funny and quippy, because that’s who she is? That isn’t how Adrienne Maloof sees it.

Let me paint the scene: Adrienne, with four orphaned children on her knee getting facials in her home spa, lays out her shoe designs on organic hemp (woven by said orphan children, and paid a Fair Wage in return so they’d learn the beauty of capitalism) for the ladies to see. Kyle and Camille both burst into tears, Taylor stands and gives Adrienne a standing ovation, but Lisa? Lisa spat on her shoe, called it “pink” (it was nude!) and immediately got four of her own orphans, didn’t pay them a cent (nor did she arrange for them to have collagen injections, because she’s tacky) and had them fashion a horribly tacky shoe named The Vander-Pump. And then Lisa went to Adrienne’s house and spat in the faces of her children.

Adrienne doesn’t quite remember things as they happened, which is baffling to Lisa (and me.) Lisa rolls her eyes and then apologizes for calling it the Maloof-Hoof, which clearly is meant to be code for Adrienne having cankles. Everyone is angry and hurt by Lisa being hilarious and don’t like her jokes. Kyle calls her condescending, and after admitting that she said “Lisa preys on weak people” she says Lisa was stupid and selfish to be hurt by that. Because Kyle was talking to Taylor, duh.

Kyle then says that being friends with Lisa is liking playing chess with Bobby Fischer. First, I would like to commend these ladies for knowing who Bobby Fischer is, one, and two, that they were able to bring it up in conversation. This ain’t Jersey. But somehow saying that Lisa is manipulative isn’t insulting, and Lisa needs to sit there and take it. Ever graceful, she steams quietly with a smile plastered on her face and offers a sincere apology to everyone there.

But the best topic is Dana. Well, it would have been if Andy Cohen would have let me write the questions. Everyone is asked if Dana is tacky for talking money. The answer from everyone: YES. Adrienne then goes a step further (she is on a roll of bitchiness!) by saying it’s indicative of New Money. Now, she’s right, but still. Meow!

Questions I would have liked about Dana:

Is she for real?

Is her husband really old and squat? Because that’s how I picture him.

Does she sit on a mirror daily and give herself an affirmation before leaving the house?

Has she ever been caught roaming through dumpsters looking for designer cast-offs?

Would she get a perm and consider playing Edina in a one-act play, Absolutely Not-Fabulous? I will gladly offer my services as Patsy Stone.

Is she for real?

The music gets serious, Andy looks serious, and that means it’s time to talk frankly with Taylor about her abuse. She and Kennedy are still struggling, but they’re trying. Poor kid. Everyone comments on how shocked they were to hear that he’d killed himself, and Lisa actually thought it was a mistake on TMZ.

Should the show have aired? Taylor says that she was in a fog and didn’t even think it through. (Yikes.) Adrienne thought it would be good to show off her businesses and shoe-line for the message of domestic abuse to be shown. Camille, however, continues to shock and awe: “No. It shouldn’t have. I was worried about his kids.”

Look at the brains and compassion on Camille Grammer! (Now I have a visual of DD as being Wormtail from Lord of the Rings, having sat by her side, poisoning her for all of Season One. And now she’s been banished, and Camille is a nice and fun person again. Yes, I’m a nerd, your point is?)

And in a yeesh moment, Taylor admits that she hoped the cameras rolling all the time would mean the abuse would stop. That it would force him to change, or for them to divorce. Gah. Oh, and he was the love of her life and she misses him all the time, and get this woman some Stockholm Syndrome therapy FAST. She’s asked if maybe the show brought on his suicide, and Jesus, guys! Well, she says, she was told that these situations often end in murder-suicide, to which Adrienne jumps in with “The show saved your life.”

Adrienne is very convinced that everything she says is truth. Camille takes a moment to express how mad she still is for having been singled out as the source of Taylor’s problems, to which she’s given an apology. No one ever saw Russell being violent with Taylor, but Lisa did see a text that was filled with horrible names and epithets, so she didn’t need any convincing.

Last on the “dear god, make it stop” train, Taylor admits that she would often ask Russell to hit her so their fight could be over, and that she had no idea that he had sent a threatening email to Camille. Put the email to rest, ladies and move past it.

Let’s talk about the shittiest chef in the world, Bernie! The picture-in-picture is of Lisa as they air the scenes where Bernie bitches about Lisa, tells the staff to step on her dog, and is just a bitch about things. Then when he shows up at SUR and is all “kiss kiss” with her, Lisa’s face is stony. Oooh, it’s about to get ugly up in here.

Lisa has no idea why the man hates her, she has never deigned to speak to or of the help. (And apparently he’s now friends with Cedric. Is he now?) Oh, but Adrienne heard from someone who heard that Lisa bitched about Mexican food at one of her parties that Bernie cooked for, so clearly Lisa was deserving of it. Now, we’ve seen throughout the season that anytime someone has wronged one of Lisa’s friends, she always stands by her friend. Latest example was the waitress who slept with Brandi’s ex-husband. So? Adrienne? Are you going to reciprocate?

“Well, he’s entitled to his own opinion.”

I see. Girl, you just lost you some Vanderfabulous and that is going to sting come morning. Then Adrienne trots out some highly unlikely story that Lisa has been selling stories to the tabloids, which is utterly absurd. Lisa tells her straight away that she will not tolerate that sort of lying about her. But, see, someone wanted a quote from Adrienne (TMZ or something) and when she demurred, the pap told her that Lisa sells him stories all the time.

And that dummy believed the pap. Over her friend. Lisa tells her, “That is such a low blow. I’ve lost respect for everyone who is spreading that.” She’s visibly upset and when the camera cuts back to her, you can see that Adrienne is maybe feeling a little stupid. Good. Maloof? You I don’t like. Bossy doesn’t tell the half of it. She says she’s sorry and Lisa sits quietly, upset.

Brandi joins them, and oh, how I love Brandi. But it’s just a teaser because we have to wait until next week (Jesus Christ, they have beat this horse about all they can) to see her get up in errbody’s faces for talking ugly about her behind her back. THAT will be awesome.

This is my favorite recap of part 1 but I am still reeling over part 2. Brandi can do things that wouldn’t suit me but that’s cool. She is herself and she owns it. I think the Richard’s sisters need to be called out for how mean they are, especially Kyle. Last season Kyle was continually mean to her sister then outting her drinking problem on national tv, then she is continually caddy towards Camille who was on shifting sand. Will Demi Moore ever call to get her look back from Kyle? And the emerald earrings that Kyle wore numerous times last season were missing this season, do you think that Angelina remembered where she misplaced them. I love flawed, complicated people, honestly I do.

However, I don’t understand how Kyle can act so holier than thou when Brandi dares to utter the word “labia” (OMG!) in the 2nd reunion show. Will someone please remind Kyle that her niece is Paris Hilton? Brandi merely uttered the word but Paris made the all too human mistake of making a sex tape with some guy (let’s not get into the history) and her actual “labia” were seen by many but the word offends Kyle?! Hmm interesting.

Would somebody please pull Kyle aside and point out to her that villifying other ppl by talking behind their backs, smirking at their explanations and roughshodding over their sincere apologies doesn’t make the world blind to her meanness nor does it do anything to elevate her status.

Somehow from reading some of the 2,300 posts on Lisa’s blog on Bravo, I get the feeling that all we have to do is sit back and watch the backlash and karma come back on Kyle, hopefully it will humble her a bit.

Just one more thing before I finish my rant, the only thing I don’t like about Brandi is when she calls herself a slut. I don’t think any woman should be called a slut, not even Paris Hilton. In the immortal words of Dolly Parton in Steel Magnolias, “if a girl can achieve puberty she can achieve a past” and no woman should have to live with that label.

K

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